Narratively Inquiring Into Experience, Narratively Attending to Environmental Education Teachers’ Identity

Abstract

In the grand narrative of Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development, teachers are recognized as key agents of quality education and as catalysts for the learning that takes place. Yet, this widespread assumption has failed to attract sufficient attention to examine ‘who environmental education teachers are’ by prioritizing research around their identity. Our study here goes along this line of thought to narratively inquire into the experience of four Greek teachers actively engaged with environmental education. Based on the narrative conception of identity as ‘stories to live by’ as a basic tenet, it is argued that teachers’ identity is composed of the stories they live throughout their personal and professional lives. In this paper we unfold the story of one of these teachers, Zoe, and highlight how her ‘stories to live by’ changed throughout her life, shaping and re-shaping her identity. By proposing a narrative and relational way of thinking about teacher identity, we focus on the identity shifts Zoe unveils and connects them to the stories she experienced in past and present encounters she had with her family, teachers, friends, and colleagues.